Olive oil quality is regulated at international level by the International Olive Council (IOC) trade standard , Codex Alimentarius at EU level by Regulation (EEC) n° 2568/91 establishing a list of chemical and organoleptic characteristics, as well as methods for their analysis.
This list and the methods are regularly updated to reflect scientific progress.
Despite these, detection methods are lacking for certain fraudulent manipulations. In particular, the identification of illegal extension of extra virgin olive oil or virgin olive oil with soft deodorised olive oil or with carefully selected blends of other vegetable oils is quite challenging. Another contentious area is the objective evaluation of quality parameters related to “freshness”.
The JRC supported DG Agriculture and Rural Development in the mapping of research needs related to olive oil authenticity, which fed into the publication of a call in the Horizon 2020 programme.
In addition, the JRC participates to the FP7 funded project Food Integrity which has a work package dedicated to olive oil.
Source: https://ec.europa.eu
